Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- John Kerry raised $570,275 from New York state in January, more than twice what he raised in the previous three months, as Wall Street bankers wrote more checks to the Massachusetts senator, federal disclosure records show.

``We're inundated with people,'' said Steven Rattner, managing principal of Quadrangle Group LLC, a private equity firm based in Manhattan. ``For the first time, people are calling up and asking to help.''

Rattner, Blair Effron, a vice chairman at UBS AG, and Hassan Nemazee, chairman of Nemazee Capital Corp., helped Kerry raise six times as much from banks in January than he did in the fourth quarter, according to Federal Election Commission data released Saturday. The Democrat is trying bridge a fund-raising gap with President George W. Bush, who has collected $143.5 million and has investment banks as six of his top eight donors.

Contributions to Kerry's campaign have picked up since he won the Jan. 19 Iowa Democratic caucuses and 14 other presidential primary contests. Kerry, who campaigned in the city yesterday, is holding two New York fund-raisers on March 1, the day before New York's Democratic primary, one of 10 ``Super Tuesday'' state contests that day.

Kerry raised $9 million nationwide from Jan. 1 though Feb. 21, spokesman David Wade said. That suggests Kerry has raised about $5 million so far this month. At the end of January, he had raised $33 million, spent $30.8 million and had $2.1 million in cash, according to FEC records.

`What We Can'

Until Iowa, ``It was like being an air-conditioning salesman in Alaska,'' said Orin Kramer, general partner of the Kramer Spellman LP hedge fund, head of the $68 billion New Jersey Investment Council and another top New York fund-raiser for Kerry. Now, ``the hit rate is way up,'' he said.

About 60 percent of Kerry's New York state money last month came from postal codes in Manhattan, home to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and dozens of other banks, the election records show. Of the $4.1 million that Kerry raised last month, at least $115,000 came from financial-services donors.

``We are going to do what we can for John,'' said James Chanos, president of Kynikos Associates Ltd., a hedge fund on East 53rd Street in Manhattan, who raised $50,000 for the leading Democratic presidential candidate.

Manhattan

If Manhattan were a state, it would rank third behind Massachusetts and California in financial support for Kerry. Kerry can use the money to buy more television and radio ads and hire more staff as Bush prepares to spend the record $104.5 million in cash his campaign reported at the end of January.

Executives at Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and eight other banks gave $30,200 to Kerry last month, according to FEC records. Wall Street bankers writing the maximum $2,000 checks to Kerry in January include Richard Bernstein, chief global strategist at Merrill Lynch & Co., Derek Kaufman, a managing director at J.P. Morgan, and David Anderson, Asia head of mergers and acquisitions at Credit Suisse First Boston Corp.

The Bush campaign, which updates its Web site weekly with the latest donors, said last week that 96 executives at the 10 banks gave $112,975 in January. So far in February, more than 30 executives and their immediate family members from those banks gave at least $52,000 to Bush.

`Energizing'

Kerry's success in primaries is ``energizing'' Bush supporters at banks and other financial firms, said John Vogt, executive vice president of the Bond Market Association, the New York-based trade group for the nation's largest bond dealers. Vogt said he has so far collected $70,000 of the $100,000 he hopes to raise for Bush.

The incumbent is getting support from bankers who support Bush's cuts in capital gains taxes and stock dividends and proposals to channel some of the more than $450 billion in annual Social Security fund contributions to private money managers.

``Some people stayed on the sidelines financially because they questioned whether the president really needed the money,'' Vogt said. ``Now that there's been a coalescing on the Democratic side, it demonstrates that there is going to be a real race and that the president needs all the money he can get.''

Bush raised $1.1 million at his most recent fund-raiser, held Jan. 29 at the Hyatt Regency in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, next door to the hometown of his father, former President George H.W. Bush. Attendees included Rick Fuscone, the retired chief operating officer of Merrill Lynch, and Craig Stapleton, former president of Marsh and McLennan Real Estate Advisors and a former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic.

Bush's $4.8 Million

Bush raised $4.8 million from the securities industry in 2003, compared with a combined $3.5 million by Kerry, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina and former Democratic candidates Howard Dean, Richard Gephardt, Wesley Clark and Joseph Lieberman, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

At the end of 2003, employees of Merrill Lynch and their immediate family members were Bush's biggest financial supporters, raising $432,104 for his reelection, the center said.

UBS was third, with $327,850, Goldman Sachs was fifth with $270,475 and CSFB was sixth with $236,250. They were followed by Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc. employees, with $229,496 in contributions and Bear Stearns Cos., with $214,775.

Other top backers were PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC, which ranked second, and MBNA Corp., which was fourth.

`Low-Hanging Fruit'

Kerry has drawn support from the likes of Stephen Robert, vice chairman of CIBC Oppenheimer & Co. Robert said he recently changed his registration from Republican to independent, reflecting his unease with a deficit that the Bush White House expects to expand 40 percent next year to $521 billion.

``It's closer to picking low-hanging fruit than pulling teeth, because there are so many moderate Republicans and independents who are so unhappy with this administration,'' said Robert, who also founded Robert Capital Management LLC. ``A lot of Republicans are concerned about the deficit and Bush's seeming disregard for the long-term implications.''

To contact the reporters on this story: George Stein in New York at ghstein@bloomberg.net and Michael Forsythe in Washington at mforsythe@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 24, 2004 00:03 EST